American activities against Cuba during the Kennedy administration
John F. Kennedy's and Robert Kennedy's attitudes toward Cuba
McCone's Hunch
The Cuban Missile Crisis
Ray Cline's analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis

 
 

American activities against Cuba during the Kennedy administration

Interviewer

Try to take you back to when you first came back to Washington from Taipei in January of '62 and you took over as deputy director of intelligence. What was the mood in the White House at that time concerning Cuba and Castro.

Cline

Uh...in early '61 when the president had just taken office, the mood was ebullient, generally. The new frontier was confident and uh...anxious to demonstrate its uh... knowledge and its power and its confidence. Their preoccupation with Cuba was impressive to me in my first brief contacts with the group uh...when they had taken office because they felt that uh...earlier authorities had erred in allowing Castro to become, in a sense, a Soviet uh... agent, a Soviet surrogate in the Caribbean. And they were very anxious to find some way to uh, get rid of what was essentially a strategic danger to the whole western hemisphere in their view.

Interviewer

Why do you think the Kennedy's were so hyped on Cuba? What was it?

Cline

Well, uh... In 1961 uh...the idea of what uh...in the Monroe Doctrine was called an 'alien political , system' being established very close to the United States in a position to influence other American republics was uh...unheard of. It seemed very wrong for us to allow a dictatorship, a Leninist system of government to establish itself just as a hundred years earlier people -- or longer ago -- people had thought it was wrong to allow uh...arbitrary monarchies to maintain --' their rule over American colonies. So there was a[n] almost instinctive reaction among these people with a certain sense of history that uh... Eisenhower and uh... had... had been a little slipshod in allowing Fidel Castro to set himself up as essentially a surrogate or uh...model performer playing the role that uh...was of benefit to the Soviet Union.

Interviewer

Allowing implies a sense of divine right or something. Can you help us understand the mood of that time?

Cline

... Well. Well, I think the mood uh..re... was reflected uh... in Jack Kennedy's inaugural speech. That it was our fate to -- and by our I mean the generation that he and I both belonged to -- our fate to conduct a long twilight struggle with a totalitarian system of government which was embodied in the Soviet Union that was just as bad for people everywhere as the uh...Nazi uh... system of government had been in Europe And this generation had just fought a long war and the attitude I think was, If we were careful to prevent the uh...proliferation of this kind of political system and its spread to new areas, that we could avoid the hazard of a third world war...which perhaps could have been avoided uh...which was of the same nature that could have been avoided when WWII broke out. What was wanted was a prophylactic measures to uh...forestall crises before they came to showdown -- wide scale military hostilities.

Interviewer

You came back from Taipei in January of '62 and took over as...after the Bay of Pigs...

Cline

Yes...I'd... Actually I came back frequently in that period but uh...I uh...took over, I think, in April of '62. I was in Washington a lot in the spring of '62 on consultation about taking over.

Interviewer

What was the mood then about Castro now that we had the Bay of Pigs...

Cline

Well...the Bay of Pigs made all the difference in the world. Instead of self-confidence and exultation uh...uh...the new frontier crowd uh...most of whom were my friends were uh...angry uh...a little bitter that they had made mistakes uh... impressed with the difficulty of running the U.S. government and making wise decisions. And more than ever impressed that they had a firm adversary, a person who would cause trouble for the best interest of the United States and its friends uh...for a long time unless uh...he was opposed, contained at a minimum, and if possible removed from office.

Interviewer

What was the operation to remove him from office?

Cline

Well uh...at... In the conversations I had uh... what they were trying to do was to organize political opposition within Cuba and to encourage the uh... emigration -- uh. ..the many Cubans who had left Castro Cuba and lived in this country to organize politically, to oppose him if necessary uh...infiltrate the country and overthrow him politically. Or as if they had tried, they were willing to contemplate uh... allowing Cubans to direct military operations against the Castro regime. But by the time uh... they had failed in the Bay of Pigs, they were thinking primarily of economic uh...sanctions, economic uh... sabotage, economic warfare. Uh... the underground still uncertain uh... campaign that at least tolerated or sanctioned the idea of assassination of Castro was something that was not openly discussed. It was not something I ever heard discussed in those days. And uh... I think that even in their own minds uh... uh... the Kennedy's and others didn't clearly say to themselves uh... Go assassinate Fidel Castro. It was much more like murder in the Cathedral when they said, Won't somebody get me rid of these uh...this scourge in my life. And uh...people were trying to do it. But not very systematically or effectively. The main campaign against Cuba in 1962 was economic. It was containment and uh... restrictions of...of growth on the part of the Communist government in Cuba.

Interviewer

Can you tell us about some of these economic measures that were taken?

Cline

Well, I...I recall a few...

Interviewer

Could you start that answer again?

Cline

I recall a few uh...of the operational concepts that were being employed uh...in the post Bay of Pigs period uh... '62 and for several years. They involved trying to damage the sugar industry, the nickel mining uh...operations and to uh... prevent shipping to Cuba of important economic products. This involved uh...in many cases, simply diplomatic and political pressure on uh... countries that were doing business with Cuba uh... not to do business with Cuba. But there were also some operations uh...involving uh...teams of Cubans uh...Cuban exiles who would uh...go ashore on the Island and uh...uh...use explosives to blow up a piece of machinery, uh...to find a way where uh...it was possible to uh...put uh...an abrasive in uh...lubricants in key machines to do so to contaminate uh...shipments of oil or whatever uh...whatever industrial uh...components were going to Cuba uh...on the seas or in ports. It was quite an elaborate campaign to do damage without hurting people, but doing damaqe to the uh...Soviet support of the Cuban economy.

Interviewer

You told me last time about square ball bearings amd things like that...

Cline

There were a lot of ideas. I'm not sure how many of them were actually carried out uh...to put uh...to put ball bearings that would fail into machinery that needed them was uh...was certainly one of the efforts. Uh...square ball bearings or simply flaky ones that would fall apart. Uh...these were simple ideas. Uh... the real operational problem was to find when and where shipments of these kinds uh...were going to be made and get access to the material. I don't think a very widespread uh...campaign was successfully mounted, but it was part of the concept to make sure that Castro did not succeed economically in exploiting the kind of economic aid he was getting from the Soviet Union and there-by appear a success to other Latin countries.

Interviewer

There was a huge operation built in Miami. Can you tell us a little about that?

Cline

Well, I can't tell you very much about it. But it was a...an organization of uh...the exiles uh...who left Cuba in huge numbers -- about 10 percent of the population did uh...leave Castro's Cuba voting with their feet uh...to get out of uh...that kind of country. And they were, for the most part, welcomed in southern United States. And many of the more young and active people wanted still to find some way to discredit and if possible uh...eliminate Castro's rule in Cuba. There were all kinds of uh... groups. The CIA uh...was instructed covertly to keep in contact with them. They authorized some limited uh... operations uh...behind uh... the inside the shores of Cuba. But uh...

Interviewer

I understood the...

Cline

...On the whole uh...the momentum for that sort of thing trailed off fairly rapidly after the Cuban Missile Crisis of '62. It was largely prior to that in the year between the Bay of Pigs and the missile crisis that these operations were popular.

Interviewer

...After you were deputy director of intelligence and before the missile crisis started, I understood that the Miami operation was very well funded...

Cline

It was extensive and uh... There...there was a very extensive network of Cuban groups who were interested in uh...damaging Castro and uh...the uh...CIA operation in the Florida area was extensive and well funded and it has clearly had the authorization of the president and all his advisors to try to do what I described, sabotage the success of the Castro regime in Cuba... I think, perhaps, people have an exaggerated uh...concept of the scale of the uh...uh... activities uh -- We supported a lot of people as I understand it, but uh... uh... they were divided. They had different programs and some of the more uh... uh...active groups who were uh...wanting to conduct essentially military operations were not supported because uh...clearly after the Bay of Pigs, we'd given up the hope of a military uh...invasion, a military infiltration that would succeed in toppling Castro. We were trying to make him unpopular and unsuccessful. Many of the Cubans wanted to assist in that. Of course we wanted to collect information from all the Cubans so the CIA contact with them was extensive, but it was not all uh...uh... sabotage and uh...harassment operations.

Interviewer

There were several hundred CIA officers in Miami working on the Cuban...

Cline

Well, in the...in the...in the southern camps there...Yes. They were scattered around uh...in different locations in Florida. And uh...I would say several hundred yes.

Interviewer

Can you put that into a sentence for me? In fact i think you did an interview with Bill Moyers where you talked about 6 or 7 hundred...

Cline

I think that probably is about right.

Interviewer

Can you put that into...

Cline

Sure, sure. Well, attempting to keep in contact with this vast uh...Cuban refugee system took a lot of people. And much of it was simply collecting information. I would guess, if I recall correctly that there were maybe 6 or 7 hundred people. It wa a very large investment of effort, but it reflected uh... the concern of the Kennedy administration to know everything about the situation in Cuba and about the degree, of feasibility of opposition to Castro.

Interviewer

This is unusual for a CIA operation of this size to be working in the United States.

Cline

Yes, it was uh...it was an unusual case and it did reflect the preoccupation of the Kennedy administration with Cuba. Uh...however, it was set up, essentially, like a foreign base. It was uh...isolated uh...insulated from uh...American uh... people and uh...localities. They simply were occupying some real estate in the continental United States. But the whole method of operation was as if they were in a foreign country and their dealings with the Cubans were very secretive and uh...intended to be uh...protective of uh... American political interests. So that uh... the secrecy was still uh...a uh...concept even though uh...some of the operations were pretty obvious and a lot of the newspaper men began to find out what was going on. It was a kind of a beginning of the problem uh...this country has always had with covert operations -- is that quite a few people have to know about them for them to take place and uh... Americans are not very good at keeping secrets.

Interviewer

Isn't that illegal for the CIA to be operating in that...

Cline

No...I th...

Interviewer

I thought that their mandate was only to operate covertly outside of the United States...

Cline

Uh...that is their mission, but the law which sets them up -- that's the National Security act of 1947 -- makes clear they will not have law enforcement uh...responsibilities in the United States uh...and uh...they will not be involved in domestic intelligence activities, which is the perogative of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, the FBI. But, obviously uh... an intelligence agency who is going to operate abroad, has to train people, recruit people... Do all sorts of things in the United States so that...that...the kind of black and white concept that they shouldn't do anything in the United States is wrong. And it was not illegal to conduct these operations against Cuba from American shores anymore than if they'd simply moved down to Guatamala or Nicaragua or some place. It would still be an American covert operation.

Interviewer

Who was primarily pushing this?

Cline

Well, I believe that the most uh...concernced person in Washington in that '62 period was Bobby Kennedy. He personally took an enormous interest in it and through the uh...through the period, at least until his brother's death, he felt that it was his job to monitor activities against Castro, to do his best to see that Castro's dreams of surviving and flourishing in Central America and doing damage to the Americans were frustrated.

John F. Kennedy's and Robert Kennedy's attitudes toward Cuba

Interviewer

Some people have speculated that the missile crisis was in part provoked by all these sorts of operations...

Cline

Well, I think there's a small element of truth in that. Castro was looking for reassurance. And his brother Raoul, who was a communist and close to the Soviet Union as was Fidel, began trying to get Soviet help to be sure that no drastic operation against uh...Cuba would succeed. But that's not the main story. I think the main story was that uh...the balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union at that time was shifting. It had to do with missile strength. Many people thought that the Soviet Union was ahead in missile strength because they had started the missile age, but in fact they knew that the United States had rapidly recovered and uh...had built uh... up to a superiority in missiles by 1962. So it was an end run uh...to put short-range missiles in Cuba where they could reach the United States just as well as long-range missiles could reach the United States from farther away. I believe that simple military logic was very important to the Soviet thinking. Not everybody took it so seriously, but I still think the Soviet Union is dominated by rather simple uh...political military concepts and one of them is get their [fustest] with the mostest and uh...they wanted the United States to be under fire, under threat from as many missiles as they could bring to bear on our continent.

Interviewer

Last time we were speculating on a post-Bay of Pigs attitude of Castro towards the United States -- you know he might have felt that he really needed some better security...

Cline

Well I...I think uh...Castro's uh...uh...fears probably were more exaggerated than the reality uh...warranted. Uh...there was clearly uh... flirtation with the idea of assassination. There were all of these contacts with uh...Cuban exiles. I must say, looking at it from Havana, it was a rather massive uh... anti-Cuban disposition of activity and uh...forces. But uh...on the other hand I think that uh...he was uh...playing his own game and was playing the Soviet card. And Moscow was playing his game. Now, Castro himself may have felt that there was a personal vendetta of Jack and Bobby Kennedy. And in many ways they were really obsessed, really preoccupied -- not in an abnormal way, but in a concentrated way -- with uh...frustrating Castro's ambitions. He may have felt that he would be in real trouble uh...the rest of his life unless he could do something to turn off this movement. Uh... it is hard to find evidence that is persuasive as to whether or not uh.. .Castro might have had something to do with Jack Kennedy's death. There certainly is a lot of suspicious circumstance and you can find statements he made suggesting that if the uh...US activities against Cuba continued uh...he would take violent action against the president of the United States. On the other hand, there's no clear evidence that he in fact did have something to do with uh...Oswald's activities. It's a very murky period uh...in which uh...I'm unable as a historian, as well as someone who remembers the period very well, to come to a conclusion as to whether Castro actively, uh...helped organize the death of the president. There's no doubt in my mind he was very relieved by the death of the president.

Interviewer

What was it in the Kennedy character about Castro?

Cline

Well, I think that uh...Jack Kennedy was uh... a very practical tough guy. He had been through WWII. Was wounded. Uh...nearly lost his life. He uh...he had a combative side to his character that uh...uh...was usually beneath the surface. He was a very genial man. But uh.. .as many people have said, he was taught by his father who was not such a genial type uh...Don't get mad, get even. If you're crossed by somebody uh...make sure you hold your own and get even with them. I think that uh...Jack Kennedy somewhat uh...accurately, felt Castro had uh... been the occasion of his first major disaster in his administration and might well have ruined it. And that uh... He couldn't blame Castro entirely for that. There were lots of mistakes made on the American side. But I think that's why both Jack and Bobby felt they had to correct the historical uh...tract. They to uh...remedy the mistake that they had made in '61 by doing something better. Now my belief is that they were playing around with all of these covert operations without being to clear that they could bring them to any very successful conclusion. And that after the successful uh...successful counteraction in the strategic missile crisis -- after they succeeded in getting the Russians to withdraw their missiles from Cuba -- somehow they felt they had evened the score and they did begin to relax and uh...the operations began to lose intensity in 1963 and uh...were desultory if not uh...unimportant after the President's death.

Interviewer

What was it about Bobby? Was he kind of trying to assuage his brother's...

McCone's Hunch

Cline

Bobby...Bobby was very loyal to his brother and particularly determined to uh... create an image of a successful Kennedy presidency that would uh...live in history. I think it's pretty clear that even in '62 he was thinking about the possibility that somehow events might lead to his succeeding his brother. But essentially he was the...the uh...man who always tried to think out the tough problems and take care of the...the details and the dirty work for Jack so as to make him a successful president. In a sense at that period, Bobby uh...saw himself taking the low road to political uh... organization and uh...and uh... efforts uh...to protect his brothers reputation while Jack took the high policy road.

Interviewer

Tell us about the famous McCone honeymoon cable.

Cline

Well, uh...John McCone who became uh...director of CIA at the same time practically that I became the deputy director for intelligence uh... was a very fine intelligence mind. He was not a professional intelligence officer. He was a businessman and uh...administrative executive in government. But he uh...he understood the need to penetrate to the bottom of evidence and to think about the analysis of events in a long-range perspective. Now when he was worrying about Cuba, which he did through all the time I knew him in those years, '61, '62, but especially in the middle of '62 when we all were worried about what was happening in Cuba. Why these military shipments? And what did they portend. McCone, in my view, had the clearest vision of anybody. And as he himself said, he didn't have the evidence to support it. He just had an instinct that if Castro was getting all of the support from the Soviet Union, there was something big in it for the Soviet Union. They weren't doing it because they liked Castro's eyes. And uh...they were intending to get a strategic gain. So purely, abstractly, John McCone reasoned to me, and I discussed it with him. I helped him write memos which went to the president before his famous honeymoon suggesting that uh...the modern anti-aircraft missiles which were going into Cuba, could only be sent there if the Soviet Union intended to use them to protect uh...the secrecy of their placement of another surface-to-surface missile which would threaten the United States. Everybody said to him, there's no clear evidence of that and there's no precedent for it. And he said, "Yeah, I know that, but it's what's going to happen." And he turned out to be right and it was on the record all the time. He did uh...make his... his wedding plans uh...for the period of the crisis and was away. But he was thinking. And he was thinking on his honeymoon all the time about this problem and kept sending back messages along the lines of analysis that there must be an in point for the Russians of surface-to-surface missles, offensive missiles in Cuba. We in the agency uh...reported his views. I think they were faithfully reflected, but the majority view clearly was the Soviet Union would not take the risk of doing that because the CIA people knew we would find out about it. We knew Jack Kennedy would be mad as hell. And we felt the United States would certainly react in a very strong way against such a move. So that my analyst friends in the DDI, Deputy Director for Intelligence part of CIA said, Look Khrushchev made a mistake in putting the missiles in Cuba. We didn't think he was stupid enough to do it. So we made a mistake in analysing what was going to happen. John McCone just guessed the heart of the problem that Khrushchev would do it and hope that he could get away with it.

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer

There's a famous CIA -- what's it called...

Cline

Board of National Estimates.

Interviewer

Board of National Estimates September 18th... I"ve got a little bit of it here...

Cline

I remember it. I remember it.

Interviewer

Did you write this or who would...

Cline

No. I approved it. It was written by the Board of Estimates which worked very independently but under my general supervision. And John McCone approved it too. Uh...I mean, John McCone said, "The analysis is correct." The...what an intelligence agency should do is talk about the historical record and the evidence we have. But he said, I think they're going to do something unusual here, and we've got to put it on the record. But what the estimate really says is, they might be going to build missile bases in Cuba. They might be going to build submarine bases in Cuba. They were thinking of the really dangerous things. So it is ridiculous to say this estimate was reassuring. It was not. But they said, "On balance. The probability is the Soviet Union will not take the political and strategic risk involved in making that kind of investment in Cuba." It turns out that...in a sense they were right. The Soviet Union lost strategically in that move. But they did take... they did take the chance and the...the warning was far from clear, except for John McCone because uh...the professional intelligent analyst felt that the Soviet Union would see the situation as a loser and would not take that risk. Uh... The Soviet Union did it. It teaches you that you must expect the unprecedented, the illogical in behavior of governments sometimes just as we sometimes see it in our own.

Interviewer

I brought along a couple of U-2 pictures. Do you remember...this is probably the most famous ones.

Cline

That's San Cristobal.

Interviewer

Do you remeber at all when Art Lundahl gave you...

Cline

Yes. I say these only in the White House. Uh... the morning of the 16th of October. But Art Lundahl called me on the...late in the afternoon of the 15th of October to say that the pictures taken on the previous day, Sunday, showed missiles in Cuba. And I said, Good God. That means everything will hit the fan tomorrow. Are you sure and insisted that they review the whole evidence. I didn't go look at the pictures. I trusted Lundahl and his people so well that I only wanted to be sure that a number of eyes and a number of minds worked over this problem. And also that our intelligence analysts who were not photo interpreters, but missile experts had studied the same data and came to the same conclusion. All of that happened by uh... early evening of the uh...night when I learned in the afternoon. When I learned about it, I called McGeorge Bundy. I arranged with uh... General Carter who was the acting DCI at the moment for McCone to brief the senior officials in the Pentagon. He was going to see them anyway. And I called the director of intelligence for the State Department. The whole intelligence community was alerted that night. And uh...we met in the White House early the following morning.

Interviewer

What were the first reactions?

Cline

Well, I was in the meeting with Bobby Kennedy and Mac Bundy and uh...Secretary Dillon and some of the others. In fact uh... uh. . . we. . . Mac Bundy carried the pictures in to the president himself. Uh...the reaction of the group though, Mac, was real dismay. Real concern that we were in a serious crisis and that uh...the president, who had warned uh...very specifically at our suggestion on the basis of earlier intelligence about what was happening in Cuba, the the Soviet Union should not put offensive weapons in Cuba. Uh...it was going to look awfully foolish unless he did something strong. Uh...Bobby Kennedy, who had been out on the campaign trail with the president was really dismayed. Felt that it was a terrible crisis and that it was up to his brother to do something drastic and dramatic and successful. Which uh... I think they believe they finally did.

Interviewer

Was Robert Kennedy concerned with the domestic political implications?

Cline

Partly. I think, throughout the discussions that I heard -- and I only heard part of them of course -- The president was conducting formal meetings many of which I listened in on, but some of which I didn't. And he had many personal meetings which of course I wouldn't have known about at the time. Uh... I think Bobby Kennedy, in my presence, kept reflecting the view that this was the watershed crisis uh... of the Kennedy administration. A time of truth. A chance to redeem himself from clear...clearly what had been mistakes in the Bay of Pigs. But that it was essential that he do so in a way that would leave him a hero and a moral leader for the United States. Bobby, at the very first formal meeting that I attended, voiced this concern that it made a lot of sense to go destroy those missile sites immediately, but that he didn't want his brother to go down in history as the Pearl Harbor uh...attacker -- all of the Japanese in 1941. So in his mind, always I think, was the historical, political image that the President would leave, and yet there was a great concentration on dealing with the crisis effectively, not seeming to be weak and uh...and uh... ineffective.

Interviewer

What was Jack Kennedy's first view of those pictures?

Cline

My impression is that uh...from the beginning Jack Kennedy uh...saw these pictures as the concrete evidence that Khrushchev and other Soviet leaders had been lying to him. That he was again in danger of being made a real patsy -- a man who didn't face up to the tough part of international relations. And he was very determined not to let it happen. I recall when uh...Gromyko came to the White House in the middle of that week and was given the last chance to suggest that somehow uh...they were willing to admit that they were putting the missiles in Cuba -- which might have changed this feeling of outrage which President Kennedy had. But when I heard the translator's account that Gromydo had denied everything and in the most plain words simply lied to the President, I know Jack Kennedy was going to get those missiles out of Cuba. He was uh...I think, uh... very uh...willing in the end, after exhausting other lesser remedies, to mount a military operation. That's controversial. Some people think yes, some people think no. But at least in the beginning on the occasions when I heard about his views, he was speaking.....

Ray Cline's analysis of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Interviewer

You were quite excited about finally getting this evidence then?

Cline

Oh, yes. You see, I had been briefing the president... Uh...I was excited, of course, about the evidence. It was the most important strategic confrontation with the Soviet Union we had since the Berlin Blockade back in the '40s and the Korean War. And I had been briefing the president personally during the summer. Uh...I'd been keeping everybody informed that there was some critical activity going on in Cuba and we were going to try to find out what it was. When we finally found out that it was indeed the offensive missiles that John McCone had suspected but we couldn't prove up to that point, uh...I knew that uh...the intelligence community had done a pretty good job of zeroing in on a critical crisis, telling our president what the situation was when he still could think what to do before the leaders of the Soviet Union knew that he knew. That's a very unusual situation in such a major crisis and uh...I believe that it was an unusually successful, though not unflawed intelligence performance and it led to one of our more successful strategic policy uh... programs. It did not end up entirely uh... as successful years later as we might have liked. But at the time, it was pretty well handled.

Interviewer

I understand you had a role in writing the October 22nd speech.

Cline

Well, I got see uh...the drafts and uh...I did draft some paragraphs on the actual situation -- what we would call the intelligence report which were in the first 2 or 3 paragraphs. I helped prepare uh...one of the early drafts of that. I was working through McGeorge Bundy's office. My point of departure in the White House was uh... the National Security Advisor to the president, Mac Bundy, who was an old friend and uh...and a very clever man. And I liked to explain to him the detailed implications of what I thought our intelligence findings were. And he gave me an opportunity to help draft and comment on uh...some of that text.

Interviewer

You were not a blockader at first?

Cline

No. Uh...I...I belonged to one of the three schools uh...the uh...diplomatic action school was one. Uh...the blockade uh...as a short time remedy was the second. The surgical strike was the third. Uh...I felt there was a real danger that the...the Soviet Union would some how outmanoeuvre us in the political arena unless we made the surgical strike. I think, however, uh... the decision was really uh... two and a half. It was the blockade to be followed by a massive strike if necessary. So it was not something I disapproved of or disagreed with. I felt that in some ways you could deal better with Castro and Khrushchev by moving and presenting them with a fait a compli. That in a sense, that would remove any danger that they would feel compelled uh...to counterattack. And uh...there was such a danger, but I also felt we had to move.

Interviewer

You had a nice anecdote [about] Ike's dictum on SAC...

Cline

What was that?

Interviewer

That you happened to...

Cline

Oh. I told you... I told when I was working for Eisenhower when he was chief of staff of the army, before he was president which was in uh... after WWII in the '40s. Uh... I had uh... discussed uh...some military plans for WWII with him and he said, "Well you got to rmember that uh...if you refer matters to the army" -- which of course he was the most distinguished uh...alumnus of -- "uh...they will want to begin any military operation by fortifying the moon." That was his statement. And uh...in some sense that's true. I felt that that uh...really re... reflected the attitude which caused our defense department to propose such a huge operation against Cuba in the military field if it was necessary so as to be absolutely sure that they would wipe out uh...every missile if there... if they were attacked. Those of us who felt a surgical strike uh...would be useful, successful, quick, settle the issue for once and all uh... were confident that our airforce, in a fairly sizable but not uh...countrywide raid could have destroyed all of the missiles that were operational in the early stage of the attack. It was only a handful. The defense department insisted that they couldn't be absolutely sure. And of course statistically they kept saying, "Well, you have a 94 percent chance but you might miss three-fourths of a missile." I don't think that really meant very much. If they had put on multiple targeting, they would have destroyed all the missiles. But uh... other considerations led the president uh...give the blockade a try rather than to take that uh...smaller attack. And he had in his mind, I think, this army and air force concept that if you're really going to take out those missiles, you had to saturate the island with military attack, military force and see if you were going to forlify the moon.

Interviewer

What do you think are the lessons to be learned from the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Cline

Well I think uh...in the intelligence field the lesson is uh... Looking back, the lessons of the Cuba Missile Crisis uh...are uh...of several different kinds. One kind is in the field of intelligence. There uh...the only mistake we made was expecting uh... too much rationality, too much uh...conformity to precedent and previous behavior on the part of the Soviet Union. In other words uh...we should have in the early stages, analysed the uh... Soviet intentions with more uh...probability of doing what in event they actually did -- take big risks and do something new. However, I think it's important to say -- and this is another lesson -- Don't let your estimates of what's going to happen prevent you from looking for the hard evidence. And that we didn't do. The CIA and all the intelligence agencies went after the photography, after the agent reports. And we did get the combination of agent reports, debriefing of refugees and pictures which proved the case as to what was really happening. Uh... the other lesson is, in my mind, in the policy field. And there uh...the first uh... phase of the lesson is uh... Be sure you have good intelligence and have time to digest it before you make decisions. That happened in this case and that's why the decisions were. ..were reasonable and...and well carried out. The second lesson, though, is where we don't look so good in my opinion. Think of the consequences of your policy decision uh...in a long-range perspective. What will happen after the crisis is dissolved. After you have dealt with it. And there I have misgivings because I think uh...the Kennedy administration leaders all became so euphoric over having won a strategic victory in confrontation with the Soviet Union that they simply were not prepared for the fact that the Soviet Union would try to get even. Uh...they got mad and they did eventually get even by installing in Cuba a major military base with intelligence capabilities, with missiles. With everything except the particular type of missile which we made them take out and have presented a formidable menace to the security of the Caribbean uh...despite our victory in '62. So looking back on it, the strategic victory we didn't focus on. We only thought of it as the tactical victory.

Interviewer

Do you think you should have gotten rid of Castro at the time?

Cline

Well...ln some ways, as I say, I look back on the Cuba Missile Crisis as uh... having been fortunate in getting the missile out but uh...being a missed opportunity to uh...discredit and destroy the Castro regime. If we had surgically destroyed the missiles or if we had in fact invaded the island in order to make the missiles inoperative, Castro would have been finished. We didn't do that and everybody pretty well congratulated themselves that they'd done it with so little damage, so little violence. Which is of course, a desirable thing. But uh...20 years later it uh...ended up with uh...some dangers to neighboring countries and to the southern United States uh...in the form of aircraft and uh... other weapons and uh...infiltration of uh... subversive and uh...terroristic active...active people. Uh...with the danger as great or greater than the uh...threat of the offensive missiles of that day.

Interviewer

You mentioned last time that perhaps we wouldn't have the Nicaraguan situation or the Angolan situation.

Cline

Cuba has been since 1962 a source of infection politically and in terms of guerrilla warfare against stable governments and against governments friendly to the United States ever since. And Fidel Castro, deliberately, provided the focus of expansion of uh...hostile governments -- governments hostile to the United States -- in Central America as his main object in life. And he has succeeded uh...in causing a great deal of difficulty particularly in recent years in Nicaragua where you have a Sandinista government that is in many ways a spawn, a throw off, a model uh...built on the Castro model.

Interviewer

So is it wrong perhaps for Americans to think in restrospect that the missile crisis was kind of a victory or kind of a...

Cline

No. I think it was a victory. I think it was an unexploited victory. It was a victory that we lost sight of as being important. Uh... and that came not as a result of faulty thinking about Cuba, but about uh...being diverted to uh...the problems of Vietnam and failing uh... with our strategic objectives in Vietnam and then sort of sitting on our hands and letting a rather major expansion of the influence of the Soviet Union and its client states in all parts of the world -- Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, the Middle East and uh...Africa.

Interviewer

Many people say that as a result of the missile crisis the Soviets built up this enormous arsenal. I think it's Kuznetsov who's reported to have said...

Cline

Yes. I heard that immediately uh...of Kuznetsov's remark...

Interviewer

Can you tell us about that?

Cline

Uh...after the... the missile crisis had subsided and the...the final arguments and counter-arguments disposing of the situation had uh...taken place uh...a very high ranking Soviet official named Kuznetsov told John McCloy that there would never again be a confrontation in which the United States had all of the uh...uh...cards in their hands -- the military superiority: nuclear, and local, conventional -- so that they had to playa political game against adverse odds. And I noticed immediately uh... almost, in...about a year later, the beginning of these massive bases being built in the Soviet Union with new missiles. And I recall within a couple of years after that saying to my colleagues and people in the administration, Look, this wonderful strategic superiority which we had and enabled us uh...to deal with the Cuba situation fairly effectively, however effectively in the long run, is a vanishing uh... asset. We will not have that situation once the Soviet Union builds all of the missiles that it clearly was beginning to build in 1964 and '65. You could forsee that 10 years later the situation would be quite different. And it was. Now uh...that was the fulfillment, I think, of Kuznetsov's uh...promise that we would never meet them again on such favorable strategic terms.

Interviewer

How close do you think the world came to nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis?

Cline

I think uh...the world was not very close to nuclear war in the Cuban Missile Crisis because uh...the superiority of American nuclear forces which were then mainly aircraft uh...delivery vehicles, but included more missiles than the Soviet Union had, meant that the Soviet Union would never go to the last resort of playing a game of blackmail over uh...nuclear war. Uh... in the second place, our conventional military strength was so great in the Caribbean, much closer to us than the Soviet Union, that there was no real contest if it came to a conventional war. So we had all...all the blue chips. And that's why we managed to win. If uh...we had not had that uh...magnificent uh...superiority in strategic capabilities it would have been a much harder uh...game to play. But we were lucky and we'll never be that lucky again.

Interviewer

You don't think this is a post facto...during the actual days of the crisis...were you scared?

Cline

...During the actual... No. Well, I was scared that... As I say, I was always scared that somebody would be crazy. Somebody would do something utterly irrational. After all they had di...done something pretty irrational, in my view, in putting the missiles in Cuba in the first place. But I was very confident personally and I assured everybody I talked to that we had uh...6,7,or 8 to 1 superiority in...deliverable nuclear weapons against the 2 countries. And that uh...the Soviet Union only in some mad mood would resort to the ultimate in military crisis. So I was very confident all through the crisis that we could achieve what we wanted if we were coherent and uh...articulate and if we explained to our own population and our allies what we were doing. And that was part of the job we had to do. And again, we provided the intelligence which made it pretty successful.

Interviewer

But you only need one missile to be launched from Cuba by one...

Cline

One nut... Well that's why there was a danger of a missile or a nuclear explosion. But there was not in my view a very serious danger of a full exchange. There were only about uh...50 or 60 missiles in the Soviet Union at that time. That's why the appearance of 80 or so in Cuba would have made a difference in the balance of strength. We had around 200 and we had many hundred airplanes which could be used against Cuba. We would not have gone to nuclear response over one missile if we knew exactly what was happening. It was always the possiblity of irrational action and uh...too panicky response that made you a little bit scared. And it was nervous making, but in my view, the odds were so great that uh...we would be able to deal with this without any war at all and certainly without a nuclear war. That it was a strategic game worth playing to the hilt and winning. Which we did.

Interviewer

Thank you very much.